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Published: March 12th 2008
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The Grandfather Rock
As the name suggests! Picked up at 9am in an open top jeep - this is going to be fun!
After collecting a few other people we head off to our first sight of the day - The Grandmother and Grandfather Rocks in Hat Lamai. These are basically rude looking rocks that look like certain parts of a man and woman - and they are all natural not man made which is quite impresive!
Next it's off to watch a monkey show with a twist. They train monkeys over here to climb the trees and pick the coconuts, so we get a demonstration and also a fresh coconut in the process - nice one!
After this we get taken to wildlife park where we get to go ELEPHANT TREKKING! It's only for 30 mins but it's still good fun, plus the loenly planet recommends it as otherwise the elephants would not be used and probably be neglected.
We also got to watch a crocodile show here - the guys are very brave! I must admit I'm not really into watching performing animals but you can see they are treated well so it's all good. Plus I get to hold another baby monkey
- cute (well, until it started tugging at my bag).
We get back into the jeep and then head off (on a rather bumpy road) to a waterfall for a quick swim, Diane and some other girls on the tour (Vicky and Kerry) get to sit on top of the jeep on the way but had there heads wacked by passing tree branches on the way - i'll stick to the seats thanks!
After our refreshing swim (the water was a tad cold) it was onto the Famous Mummified monk - an actual dead monk thats still sat in the meditating position - he even still has sunglasses on.
We also got to be blessed by a monk outside who gave us free white wristbands for good luck (well, for a donation!).
A very bumpy off road-ride later and we find ourselves up in the mountains. Our first stop here is to the Magid Gardens, a place where a couple created a garden for monks to meditate in and has lots of really interesting statues.
Then after an even bumpier ride we reach the top of the mountain (360m above sea level) and stop at the
restaurant for a Traditional Thai lunch (very spicy, yum yum) with a stunning view.
With our belly's now full we all head back down the mountain (reminded me of Fraiser Island in the jeeps - we were proper off-roading it now, and the driver had his nan in the front!) and stop at a rubber plantation were we are shown how they extract the rubber from the trees (they call them happy trees as they make condoms from the rubber!).
Last stop of the day is at Big Budda Beach, which is aptly named for the giant Budda statue highlighting the sky.
The trip was a really good day and we met some girls (vicky and Kerry from London and Rebecca from manchester who is travelling on her own, brave lass) who are going to the Full Moon party tomorrow aswell.
Rebecca hasn't bought her boat ticket yet so when we get back to our Guesthouse me and Di walk with her to the tout on the beach were we got our tickets from, to be told that due to an election day on Saturday the Thai Government had now moved the party to Sunday 24th
- how rude!
This has completely messed up our plans as we were hoping to go and stay on Kho Phagan for a few days after the full moon party when the accommodation would be cheaper. However now that the date has been changed to 2 days later, if we stayed it would mean we would not have as much time on Ko Phi Phi on the other side as we wanted.
We have a beer at the beach cafe to cool off (so annoyed, and so are Vicky and Kerry when we tell them - they have already booked to move on Sunday so are now going to miss it). We deceide to stay here until Monday and go to the full moon, as we had planned our trip around it. This means though that we will be travelling to Phuket on Monday when we are hung over but we have done it before and it's better to be travelling and doing something with the day as we would have only wasted it recovering anyway!
Rebecca is going to stay as well, so after wandering the streets and buying a few presents (now I feel better)
we retire, as with it being Big Budda day no bars are open (except in restaurants).
We have arranged to meet up with the girls tomorrow night and have our own Full Moon Party - we'll show the Thai Government!
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